Interview: Alan Arkin discusses the new movie "13 Conversations About One Thing" and his overall acting career. All Things Considered. National Public Radio. May 29, 2002. JOHN YDSTIE, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm John Ydstie. LIANE HANSEN, host: And I'm Liane Hansen. Actor Alan Arkin made his movie debut in the 1966 comedy "The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming." He was nominated for a best-actor Oscar. From then until now there are no gaps in his cinematic resume and a great deal of variety. "Wait Until Dark," "Catch-22," "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," "Little Murders," "The In-Laws," "Glengarry Glen Ross," "Edward Scissorhands," "Grosse Pointe Blank," "Jacob the Liar." If you can't remember him in some of them, it's because he's the kind of actor who disappears into his character, an Everyman. His new movie, written and directed by Jill and Karen Sprecher is a small-ensemble film featuring John Turturro, Amy Irving and Matthew McConaughey. "13 Conversations About One Thing" is mostly about that web of good and bad karma that people weave and how such a web can trap strangers. Alan Arkin plays Gene, who runs an insurance agency. We meet him sitting at a bar and talking to Matthew McConaughey, who plays a hotshot lawyer, about happiness. (Soundbite of "13 Conversations About One Thing") Mr. ALAN ARKIN: (As Gene) Show me a happy man; I'll show you a disaster waiting to happen. Mr. MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY (Actor): You know, if you don't mind me asking, what makes you an authority on the subject? Mr. ARKIN: (As Gene) I knew a happy man once. It was a curse. Mr. McCONAUGHEY: That man you knew--he wouldn't happen to be sitting in a bar on a weeknight having some drinks by himself, would he? Mr. ARKIN: (As Gene) Just a guy I used to work with. He thought he had it made and he liked to brag about it. HANSEN: Gene is obsessed with a co-worker in his office, Smiley Beauman(ph), who lives up to his name. He's always happy, and it drives Gene crazy. That dynamic was attractive to Alan Arkin the actor. Mr. ARKIN: The fact that somebody else's happiness just completely ruins Gene's life is completely insane and delightful to me. I don't know. My perverse nature, I guess. HANSEN: He must be fun to play because he's paranoid. He's annoyed. He's dyspeptic... Mr. ARKIN: Yeah. HANSEN: ...I think, you know. And... Mr. ARKIN: No. I really liked that poor guy, Gene. I felt for him. (Soundbite of "13 Conversations About One Thing") Mr. ARKIN: (As Gene) Oh, God. Am I missing something? Beauman just glides through life without a care in the world. He's out all day looking at leaky roofs, dented cars, looking at other people's misery. He comes back, he's smiling. Smiling. Unidentified Man: And if I didn't know better, I'd think that you were jealous. Mr. ARKIN: (As Gene) Excuse me. Did I hear you correctly? Did you say you think I'm jealous of Smiley Beauman? Unidentified Man: I just meant, why let a guy like that bother you? Mr. ARKIN: (As Gene) Because he's average. That's why. He sits behind his desk all day, rushes home exactly at 5 to his wife and his kids, messes around with his garden. He's got no vision. He's got no drive. HANSEN: What we learn during the course of the film is that Gene's life is miserable. His wife has left him. His son is a junkie and a thief. And he's feeling pressure from his own bosses. But Alan Arkin says his character's motive is not revenge. Mr. ARKIN: I don't really feel like it's an evil thing on his part. I feel like he just cannot believe that the guy is telling the truth about his life, his happiness. That was the way I chose to interpret him, that he just felt that the guy's as miserable as he is and he's just found a way of hiding it, which made a lot of sense to me. HANSEN: It happens in your face a lot because you, I think, have made a career doing deadpan delivery sometimes, so you let the audience fill in bits of your character. Mr. ARKIN: Yeah. I've heard that from people before. I don't know what that means, really. I mean, I look at what I'm doing and I feel like I'm moving my face as much as most other actors, except maybe Jim Carrey. HANSEN: Yeah. It's... Mr. ARKIN: The only thing I can interpret that as is that I'm not telegraphing what the audience is supposed to feel, which I feel very strongly about. I don't like acting where the audience is given every clue as to what they're supposed to think and feel, and I don't like films that do that. And I particularly dislike the movie music that does that. I want to run out of the theater the minute the score is telling me exactly what I'm supposed to think and feel. HANSEN: There are a lot of scenes of you in this film where you are just sitting on a bench. I mean, you're sitting on a bench in the courtroom. You're sitting in a subway. You're sitting. You're waiting. And we are watching your face. What are you doing in those scenes? What is the direction that you've been given? Mr. ARKIN: Well, Jill gave me very little direction while we were shooting. We spent a lot of time beforehand talking about the script and the character. And then once on the set there was no time for anything. So, I mean, I was thinking different things. It was depending on the specific shot. HANSEN: Sitting in the courtroom, I guess waiting to go into the hearing where your son is going to--he actually blows his bail... Mr. ARKIN: Yeah. HANSEN: ...just beforehand, so can't tell whether you're thinking about him, your life, what you're going to do to the happy guy in your office... Mr. ARKIN: It was all of--no, it wasn't the guy in the office. When I was out there it was the loneliness of the place. What am I going to say to my son? I don't know what I'm going to say to him. I have no idea what our relationship is. What am I doing here? I mean, all those things. But it doesn't come up as words for me a lot of the times. It comes up from his feeling states. And when I say feeling states I don't mean emotional states. I mean sensory things. I learned recently that there's a difference between emotions and feelings, and I feel like a lot of actors get trapped in emotional states rather than feeling states. Big emotions cloud your ability to feel anything, and when I say feelings I mean using your sensory mechanism: your sight, your sound, your sense of smell, your sense of touch and the senses beyond those that allow you to know what other people are going through without touching them, without hearing them talk. And I try to bring that into my acting. HANSEN: Would you bring it in differently if you were doing that scene on stage?-- because film gives you the luxury of the close-up, too. Or it might not be a luxury. Mr. ARKIN: I don't act that way. The only thing I do when I'm on stage that's any different is just to speak louder. So I think that just small things can happen on stage. You're just given the--I hate close-ups. I think close-ups are an invasion of privacy in part, and I also think they don't tell the story. I think that drama goes on in the discrepancies between what' s coming out of your mouth and what your body is saying, for example, inthat tension. And I also think that it goes on in the tension between you and another person, which you never see in close-ups. HANSEN: How is it different in television? I mean, you are someone who has been able to move seamlessly from one medium to the next. Mr. ARKIN: I don't think there's any difference. People say you have to be smaller on the screen than you do on stage. I don't think that's true. I don't think there's any difference at all. I think acting is acting. HANSEN: I did read about you that--it said you don't have to act anymore if you don't want to. I mean emotionally. Mr. ARKIN: Emotionally. No, I don't. I don't need it to survive anymore. It was a survival mechanism for a long time in my life, but I don't--it's not anymore. HANSEN: Financially, though? Mr. ARKIN: Financially I need to do it. So if you have anything waiting around for an elderly improvisational actor, let me know. HANSEN: Alan Arkin, thanks a lot. Mr. ARKIN: Nice to talk to you, Liane. HANSEN: Alan Arkin appears in the new film "13 Conversations About One Thing." He joined us from station WSHU in Fairfield, Connecticut.